Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[fuzzi]

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The double-preening photo!

 

[Little Tala Bug]

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I love this picture!!! They are perfect yin and yang opposites in colouring. Just wonderful <3

 

[fluffycrow]

It can be done with common sized bantam eggs too. The chickens did it for me. I found a wild nest and tested the eggs. A few were so old they floated. But they didn’t smell and didn’t explode.
I used one as a fake egg. After a year the egg cracked and I looked inside. It dried out completely in the inside.
I saved a few in a cardboard egg carton to use as future fake eggs until someone told me this could go wrong. Now I Use chalk and rubber fake eggs.

Bowing an egg out, makes the egg less strong.

Thanks! I'll find a place tomorrow where no birds can get to it

 

[Perris]

Further to https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rescued-chickens-thread.1502267/post-27179811 I have been reflecting on Chirk, since he now spends a lot of the day in the bin-serving-as-coop, and didn't come out to eat his tea yesterday. He is not used to captivity; he had never even been held before he got sick. When does temporary confinement for his own protection slip into keeping him in a coop and run 'for his own good'? I think I need to let him out; what do others think?

 

[ManueB]

Further to https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rescued-chickens-thread.1502267/post-27179811 I have been reflecting on Chirk, since he now spends a lot of the day in the bin-serving-as-coop, and didn't come out to eat his tea yesterday. He is not used to captivity; he had never even been held before he got sick. When does temporary confinement for his own protection slip into keeping him in a coop and run 'for his own good'? I think I need to let him out; what do others think?

How is his mobility and health ?

Would you have a possibility to do things progressively, such as maybe letting him out at the end of the day only, or would he be outside all the time ?

Has he been interacting with the males through the separation?

 

[Perris]

How is his mobility and health ?

Would you have a possibility to do things progressively, such as maybe letting him out at the end of the day only, or would he be outside all the time ?

Has he been interacting with the males through the separation?

it's difficult to assess while he's confined; he still staggers or has tremors occasionally, and I think he's thin; his foraging opportunities are obviously very limited. His comb and wattle are a great colour, and his new feathers are grand where he can reach to get the keratin sheath off, but they have retained sheaths at the back end, which I think must be uncomfortable. He looks a bit like a porcupine back there. He also hasn't resumed dustbathing as yet, but that may be partly because he's not strong enough yet to create one or the bits of lawn the trampoline's been over are unsuitable.

The only male giving him grief is Fforest, who's bottom of the 3 outside the enclosure, and whose position is therefore most at risk from a resurgent Chirk. Chirk will stand quite happily within a foot of the netting when Killay is standing just the other side, but when Fforest comes over, he prowls around the circumference and sends Chirk into a tizzy. Amadeo has essentially ignored him, and does not join in the flock bonding session on and around the trampoline every morning after breakfast - otoh that's when he can get his breakfast, so he's busy at the feeding station then along with the lowest ranking females.

 

[Shadrach]

The double-preening photo!

They weren't preening, they were sleeping..

 

[MaryJanet]

it's difficult to assess while he's confined; he still staggers or has tremors occasionally, and I think he's thin; his foraging opportunities are obviously very limited. His comb and wattle are a great colour, and his new feathers are grand where he can reach to get the keratin sheath off, but they have retained sheaths at the back end, which I think must be uncomfortable. He looks a bit like a porcupine back there. He also hasn't resumed dustbathing as yet, but that may be partly because he's not strong enough yet to create one or the bits of lawn the trampoline's been over are unsuitable.

The only male giving him grief is Fforest, who's bottom of the 3 outside the enclosure, and whose position is therefore most at risk from a resurgent Chirk. Chirk will stand quite happily within a foot of the netting when Killay is standing just the other side, but when Fforest comes over, he prowls around the circumference and sends Chirk into a tizzy. Amadeo has essentially ignored him, and does not join in the flock bonding session on and around the trampoline every morning after breakfast - otoh that's when he can get his breakfast, so he's busy at the feeding station then along with the lowest ranking females.

Do you have time to supervise a few hours of free ranging time? If so, see what he prefers. He could be an outlier, especially given his condition. Maybe he'll demonstrate that he prefers to stay close to his trampoline? Also, if you're on hand, you could protect him if a beating gets started.

 

[Shadrach]

I love this picture!!! They are perfect yin and yang opposites in colouring. Just wonderful <3

Interesting how their tail feathering is so different.

 

[Perris]

Do you have time to supervise a few hours of free ranging time? If so, see what he prefers. He could be an outlier, especially given his condition. Maybe he'll demonstrate that he prefers to stay close to his trampoline? Also, if you're on hand, you could protect him if a beating gets started.

yes, I'll definitely try to stay close when I open it up (which I'll obviously have to do sometime), but chickens can get places I can't in this garden, so I'm not the ideal bodyguard for him I once had to fish Sven, in his sunset year, out of a 4' deep bramble-tangled nettle-strewn ditch, which wasn't fun.

On the upside, all the roos here are easily stopped by my simply adopting a goalie pose (for our friends from the USA, that's a goalkeeper in a game of football, like so

)
and they then turn around and go back (or, if they're Fforest, try to find a sneaky way round), so, as long as I am present and can interpose myself, we should be OK. The trouble is, Chirk's likely to duck and dive into the nearest shrub, where I can't follow.